Facing Our Brokenness

Step 1

Step 1. We admitted we were powerless over _______, that our lives had become unmanageable. We are broken and sinners.

“sin is a misdirection of our truest energies” ~ J. Phillip Newel

“We are all addicts. Human beings are addictive by nature. Addiction is a modern name and honest description for what the biblical tradition called 'sin,' and medieval Christians called 'passions' or 'attachments.” ~Richard Rohr

Through contemplation and reflection, the Ignatian Spirituality Exercises invites people to examine their sin, their unhealth. The word sin can trip a lot of people up. Yet, we know we make mistakes, and many of us know we are wounded. We live in a wounded world and however much our childhood environment and caregivers sought to tend to our needs and love us well, they too are wounded and we were left wanting in some areas. Admitting our brokenness, our sins, is the first step of recovery.

It is a journey toward our true self, identifying what is false. This is easier said than done. Irish writer J. Philip Newel writes, “The false self lives off the true self. It grows on it. Part of repentance is to discern the goodness in us that has become buried by evil. It is to identify deep in our mistakes and confusions the goodness that is a more authentic expression of our nature than our failings.”[i]